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Download PDF The Finance Division yesterday released a loan of Tk 1,000 crore to the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) at 3 percent interest rate as a temporary solution for the corporation’s acute liquidity crisis.
“The finance ministry released the loan to the BPC for the first time, which will be paid back in 20 years,” said a source in the energy ministry adding, “The money was urgent as the BPC was unable to open LC (letter of credit) for fuel import due to financial crisis.”
Earlier, the Finance Division gave Tk 700 crore to BPC as subsidy while another Tk 730 crore came from selling of shares of the state-owned oil companies.
On Sunday, the energy ministry officials had a tri-party meeting with Finance Division and Bangladesh Bank to find ways for resolving the BPC financial crisis caused by high prices of petroleum in international market. The corporation’s average monthly loss is Tk 700-800 crore.
On BPC’s borrowing of $200 million from the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) for import of fuel at IDB’s increased rate, sources said the BPC is yet to start negotiation with the IDB to convince them on the previous rate.
“We will try to convince the IDB for the previous rate, if we fail, there would be no way other than accepting the IDP proposed rate,” said a high official of the energy ministry.
The BPC has been paying LIBOR (London Inter Bank Offer Rate) plus 1.75 percent on the IDB loans, but now, the IDB has set the interest rate not below 5.5 percent as the LIBOR is on the decline.
Sources in the energy ministry said the LIBOR has been showing a decreasing trend for the last one year.
The April 16 data on LIBOR showed that the rate was 2.64 percent for the past 12 months, while it was 5.33 percent before that.
“So the IDB has set a new rate saying that total interest rate would not go below 5.5 percent,” an official said, adding that as per the April 16 LIBOR, the interest rate on IDB loans stands at 4.39 percent.
September 10th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
I am a university teacher currently involved in a research for which I need data on year wise import of crude oil (and refined oil, if any) and costs incurred for this import. I will also be helpful if I could get prices of crude in internatinoal market in past one year.
Thanks